Overview

Cycling through the Week

Cycling through the Year

Comparing total counts for each data provider and location against averages per hour through the day… this gets more interesting looking at the data month on month, as we can see how cycling changes through the full period for which counters were installed and working. (Note - where the picture is blank no data exists for a provider for that period.)

Variation across Locations

As the Seasons Change

Peak Counts

Lerwick – Change through the Seasons

About

About the Visualisations

Starting with the installation of 11 bicycle and pedestrian counters by Cycling Scotland's National Monitoring Framework (NMF) in a number of counties predominantly in west, central Scotland, from Jun 2017 and through to Jan 2022. The 63rd counter was installed in Fort William in the Highlands in Aug 2021, and a further three in Edinburgh in Jun and Jul 2021.
The snapshots now also include data from more dense networks of council-managed counters and some points along the John Muir Way. Some councils manage counters outwith their geographical or administrative boundaries; for instance, the City of Edinburgh Council also provides counts for Dalkeith (Midlothian). Where more than one filter is used, the charts will always group (or order) first by location (e.g., hamlet, village, town or city), then local authority, then data provider.
Pedestrian count data is currently available only from NMF Counters. Summaries are shown in the overview section.

Most of the charts are interactive. Mousing over data points will display tooltips with more detail. Click/double-click on legend items to filter data sub-sets. Most charts support zoom in by drawing a rectangle around a region of interest; double-click in empty space to return to the full view or choose reset axes from the toolbar. Alternatively, use the toolbar on the top, right, to interact with each chart.

Charts directly comparing detail by location use a log scale (rather than linear/arithmetic) because of the very large differences in counts (and counters) across locations. For instance, Edinburgh and Glasgow had ab out 40 counters each by 2018, and as at mid 2021, 57 and 75 counters respectively. Being the second and first largest (cities) by population, and Edinburgh being especially dense, directly comparing counts to all other locations dwarfs all other data, including even Stirling and Dundee – we obtain plots with most of the data sitting in the bottom, left-hand corner.

Counter Locations

In the overview section we list all counters – NMF and council-managed, showing installation dates and count per location. It should be noted that there is some delay between counter installation and the point from which data is recorded. Counters that came online within the last month or two may therefore not have any data reported in charts shown. Occasionally, also, a counter may go out of action temporarily and sometimes for significant periods of time.

Data Sources

Counter data may be accessed via Cycling Scotland's Active Travel Open Data Portal. The data feeding into this analysis is updated shortly after the end of each month, to allow for any delays in data reporting.

All data feeding into this analysis is extracted at the level of detail of hourly counts by counter, and then aggregated as required. Data may be accessed via the API; this requires registration and request of an API key. Alternatively, a dump may be downloaded from the portal.
The data is updated on a monthly basis, with a slight delay to allow all counters to report data.

Historical weather pattern data was obtained from the Met Office.